A new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience notes that when both sedentary mice and mice that were allowed and encouraged to run regularly were both put in anxiety-inducing situations, the parts of the brain responsible for stress response lit up in both groups’ brains. However, the mice that were regular runners adapted quickly and were able to “cope” with the anxiety much more rapidly than the sedentary mice, who still showed signs of stress and anxiety long after their counterpart group had calmed down. “What all of this suggests,” says Elizabeth Gould, director of the Gould Lab at Princeton, who wrote the paper with her graduate student Timothy Schoenfeld, now at the National Institute of Mental Health, and others, “is that the hippocampus of runners is vastly different from that of sedentary animals. Not only are there more excitatory neurons and more excitatory synapses, but the inhibitory neurons are more likely to become activated, presumably to dampen the excitatory neurons, in response to stress.” The findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience. It’s important to note that this study examined long-term training responses. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/how-regular-exercise-can-calm-anxiety-93819.html

How Regular Exercise Can Calm Anxiety

I wasn’t an outsider, I was a visitor.” Although the weeks of training went by fast, there was plenty of time to make lasting connections between the two forces. “I made some good friends over here, ones I’ll keep in touch with for years to come,” Bateman said. During the first week of the exercise, Singapore Army 1st Sgt. Md Faris Bin Md Dawood showed Bateman and his squad members a side of Singapore they may never have seen otherwise. “He took us to his hometown and his favorite restaurant,” Bateman said. “I was able to go to this home-style restaurant and experience how they cook and their food and how they live day-to-day. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.army.mil/article/108618/Exercise_Lightning_Strike_Comes_to_a_Close/